Sidd Wills (Williem Siddik) is an illustrator with a very distinct style. He was a university mate of ours and back then, his style was already recognized by peers, with an A4 sized book that had all his illustrations. We personally prefer his uncoloured illustrations to the coloured ones though. But for commercial work, coloured ones do look more complete.

We caught up with him to find out more about his illustrations and how he even got to this distinct style of his. Through the feature, you will also get a sense of how he is in person, of his jocular personality.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

I goes by the name Williem Siddik, but if it were up to me? I would give myself a more majestic name like Walrus Apache or Raksasa Sayang. I work for a AD agency firm, but of course what I really wanna do is to be the professional beer taster *(wink).

Describe your illustration style in 3-5 words?

"Blended wet meat with charcoal"

What is your process in doing an illustrative piece?

I start by looking at references by my favourite artist for inspirations, then cry a lil’ bit inside and think “How the f**k they come out with that” after that is done, I make a rough sketch of the piece, and ink it with my trusty old Micron pen, and clean it up in Photoshop and start vomiting colours out till I find the mix that I'm happy with, and TADA!. Sometimes I repeat the first process once I'm done.

How did you even start illustrating? And to this style of yours?

I think it started from doodling textbook in secondary school days, I remember as I got older, the doodling got more ridiculous. Eventually I discovered a few surreal artists that I really like, and borrowed some of the ideas to be fused with my own.

Your works have gotten a lot more colourful. Is that something you've evolved into?

I wouldn’t say I evolved to that per se, ideally I would like to add colours to all the illustrations that I’ve done, just that sometimes when I'm done inking a particular drawing, I would work on the next idea that excites me more without putting in colours in the previous one.

You displayed a booklet of your illustrations back in Uni. How many booklets of that do you actually have?

Hmm.. none, think I lost them all haha.

You've gotten a lot of attention for your illustrations. Is there any advice you can give to aspiring illustrators?